Fall again

This summer has been somewhat eventful for me and somewhat nondescript at the same time. I managed to have a great vacation in Gatlinburg , TN and completed my mission of visiting every state park in Kentucky. Actually that one was my girlfriends mission, I just accompanied her during her travels, it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

I also bought a new motorcycle which, I am hoping will offer me the opportunity to pack up and do some long distance cruising when the urge strikes me. I really enjoy the bike and it's a whole different feeling when I'm heading down the road to somewhere.

On the other hand the summer has been rather blah, mainly because of the weather. This seemed like one of those summers where it just never got to the point where I could call it a proper summer. It was more like a warmer than usual spring, complete with an overabundance of rain. The rather persistant rain really put a damper on a lot of outdoor stuff that I had planned to do this year. No camping for this kid.

Fortunately fall has arrived and the weather has been gorgeous for most of September and October. It really makes me wonder about the weather patterns around this place.

So my daughter is getting married in December before christmas. She sprung this one on me back in July and I have been wondering about her sanity ever since. I have to admit I do like the guy she is marrying and she certainly could have done a lot worse. The thing that gets me is that this is a girl who always swore that she would never get married and had no desire to have kids. Now she is telling me that she is feeling the urge and wants a family of her own. I have always wanted grandkids and since my son doesn't seem to be inclined to do anything about it I have pinned my hopes on my daughter. Now that she is getting married I guess I might have something to look forward to in the future.

I do have some trepidation about her marriage though. While she adamantly states that she is sure that this is what she wants the rest of us wonder about it. It just seems to unlike her so I suppose it's only natural to wonder a bit. I am happy for her though and since she is my baby, will always be behind her.

Last weekend my son and I went down to Palm Springs on a golf getaway. He has never been down to the States and had no idea what to expect. I had told him that I would take him down one day so we could do some male bonding and have a couple of rounds of golf at the time. In the end we had a wonderful trip. The golf was a lot of fun and we spent a lot of time exploring the place and taking in the sights. By the end of the trip Steve was ready to move down there. I guess that means he enjoyed himself. I told him we would probably do it again sometime if all went well.

Now christmas is sneaking up on me and I have to start considering presents for the family. As usual I have no idea what to get anyone. This is the part I hate about the holiday season. l never have any good ideas. It's going to be a lot of last minute shopping again. I'm open to suggestions. :)

Work and more

Once again vacation is over for the time being and I'm back at work. Not that I want to be but until I find someone to pay the bills or win the lottery I'm stuck with it. The job presents some unique challenges for me, such as how to motivate myself to stay awake when everything is running smoothly and there is nothing to do. I've found that one can only stare at a computer screen for so long before ones head approaches terminal velocity immediately prior to it making contact with the keyboard. Good thing it's the weekend and there's no one else around.

I'm still waiting for summer to appear in this area. It has been teasing me for a couple of months now but hasn't fully made an entrance. It seems every time I'm off shift the weather is more fall or spring like than summer. Of course when I'm on shift and stuck inside for 12 hrs a day the weather is beautiful outside. Conversely during the winter I love my job because I never have to step outside while I'm at work.

It never fails to amaze me how everyone complains about politicians but every election the same ones seem to get back into power. If you don't like them don't vote for them. Seems simple to me. If you don't have enough choices then make your own, form a new party. If you make sense to people they might actually have the guts to vote for you.

Vacation time!!

It's that time of year for me when I usually take my vacation. I try and work it so that I am on vacation for my birthday. Although I'm getting older and birthdays don't count much any more I still like the idea of being off on the day.

So my girlfriend and I are on our way to a cabin in the hills near Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee. It's the 3rd time we've been down there and personally I love it. Got the cabin all to ourselves and the park is close enough that we can hike and explore to our hearts content. Very relaxing indeed. There is some beautiful country there and lots of waterfalls to hike to.

Along with my vacation comes the start of ball season here. I play fastball for a team in one of the few fastball leagues in the city. I suspect I'm going to be the oldest person in the league this year. Up until now there has always been this one guy who is a few years older than I am but I think he has retired now. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I know I like to tease my teammates about it, most of them are at least 20 years younger than I am. I guess I've been with the team for so long now they don't realize just how old I am. I figure as long as i can still pitch and get people out I'm going to be playing. After being out practicing a few times I can see my curve and rise ball are going to be working pretty good. Good thing the season starts right after I get back from vacation.

Thursday morning can't come soon enough. I get off work at 630 am and catch a flight at 945 am. Good thing the flight is a long one so I can catch a nap on the way down.

Spring is sprung

Yes it seems like spring has really sprung around here. The weather has been mostly spring-like for the last few weeks and today I looked out my door and there was a robin sitting on the steps looking back up at me. I guess that's the official sign.

Every spring I tend to start to think more of my summer vacation and ball season and golfing and camping and fishing. All the sort of thing that I love doing but which are impossible to do during the winters up here. I keep thinking that one day when I retire I am going to make sure that I'm in a place that allows me to do this stuff year round. Or at least be able to travel to a place where I can do all that year round. Not sure where a place like that is but I'm sure there's one out there.

I recently started to try and contact some of my old friends from high school via facebook. It didn't take me long to discover that there were many of the kids I knew from back home online and in contact with each other. Slowly I've started to add them and make contact again. It's really interesting to see how people have grown and how much my memories of what they looked like are not really accurate. I see the pics of them now and think of how I thought they would look. Most of the time it's an epic fail as they look nothing like I remember them. I'm not sure if that means my memory is going or what. I have to admit it's been in the order of about 35 or more years since I've seen most of them so I'm sure that has something to do with it. It is neat to think that there was a time not too long ago when this sort of reconnection would have been next to impossible.

One of these days...

It's been a while since I posted so I figured it was about time I updated things. Not that there is much to update as life goes on and I just go with the flow.

I spent christmas out in Victoria with my kids. It was a great time and I spent way too much money spoiling them. All in all it was worth it however. I may not be around that much but I do what I can when i am. It's funny that I still think of them as kids when they are both around 30 yrs old. I guess that's a parental thing where you always think of your offspring as kids no matter how old they get. I even made the complete christmas dinner for them which we ate around Steve's coffee table as he doesn't have a real dining table. Everything was just as good though.

The trip back home after christmas was something else though. Due to some idiot trying to blow up a plane on christmas day, there were new security precautions at the airport and consequently very long lineups. My flight was delayed by about 2 hours because of it. And when I finally did get on the plane they couldn't even turn the in flight entertainment system on because the new security regulations prohibit it. I guess the theory is that some terrorist can use the live map channel and be able to tell where they are so they can do something over a city. Of course that logic is defeated by looking out the window and seeing cities and towns below you.

So I'm waiting for my yearly performance review at work. As yet the manager hasn't mentioned it to so I'm just going to sit tight and see what happens. Not that I care one way or another because I'm capped out on my salary and vacation so there really isn't any incentive for me to do anything to rate something other than a mediocre review. I suppose the only thing that keeps me going a lot of times is the fact that I have worked for so long and developed my habits and work ethics that won't allow me to totally slack off. It will be interesting to see what he says.

My main resolution this new decade is to try and keep my blog up a bit more. Not sure that will happen but it's probably more likely than me trying to lose weight.